A new Kaspersky Lab and B2B International survey of 3,900 IT professionals shows 94% of organisations have had targeted IT security attacks in the past year.
Their IT Security Risks Survey detailed that a single successful targeted attack can cost an organisation $US 2.54 million (enterprise level) and $US 84,000 for small businesses. The average cost for a single successful attack is $US 720,000. These are staggering sums, and serve as a reminder as to why IT security should be continue being on organisation’s radars.
Other key findings of the survey included:
- 64 percent believed spam was the top external threat to their organisations, followed by viruses, worms, Trojans and other types of malware (61 percent).
- 38 percent said the protection of confidential data was their top priority.
- An organisation that suffers a data breach most commonly loses information about its internal operations (43 percent), followed by customer information (31 percent) and financial information (22 percent).
“The survey results clearly indicate that many businesses now recognise that the threat of a targeted attack is very real and could be very harmful for their organisation. However, we are seeing that the number of companies that are actually taking that knowledge and turning it into an action to protect their organisation from such attacks is still alarmingly low”, said Chris Doggett, Kaspersky Lab North America’s Managing Director.
Threats are not going away, they are growing.
The Global State of Information Security Survey 2015 (a worldwide survey by CIO, CSO and PwC) released earlier this month, revealed the number of reported cybersecurity incidents rose 48 percent in 2014 to 42.8 million, or approximately 117,339 attacks per day. As these attacks become more targeted, the risk to organisations continues to escalate.
Can you combat the growing threat yourself?
Frost & Sullivan suggests the demand for outsourced security services will almost double over the coming four years. The small and medium sectors can not afford to hire (let alone keep) the subject matter experts they need, and the capital cost of security appliances makes the ‘as a service’ model much more attractive.
Under the ‘as a service’ model, smaller organisations can leverage industry leading experts and technologies to protect their operations, intellectual property and financial data in an affordable and predictable way.
For more information on how to mitigate your risk (or to validate your existing security strategy), contact blueAPACHE.